Marking Half a Century WATERCOLORS PAINTED WITH PRIMARY PRODUCTIVITY The surface colors of the estuary outflows through a manmade inlet in St. Lucie County paint a beautifully painful picture of the intersection of natural and anthropogenic forces. First, we see the turquoise blue waters of the warm subtropical Atlantic Ocean, with a harsh line discerning the tidal flux of nutrient-packed inshore waters. The nutrients contributing to primary productivity of plankton at the base of the food chain are murked with the runoff of human development. However, streaks of orange and red suggest that life-supporting processes also are occurring in the mix of stratified sediment.
48 | FLORIDA ATLANTIC MAGAZINE
C LARK MORGAN, FAU HARBOR BRANCH OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTE, STUDENT WINNER 2021 FAU ART OF SCIENCE PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST
